Bizarre cartridge I picked up in a retro game store for $5. Surprisingly a very fine experience; glover mixes platforming, collect-o-thon and puzzle game into one very complete experience. The music, especially in the earlier levels, is very good, and the atmosphere is uncanny but charming. It feels like the controls could have used more thought and the level design more depth, as there are some very infuriating design choices here and it feels like the game is trolling you more than anything else sometimes, but that's kind of a part of the experience and it requires a lot of adaptation to get used to trying to move the ball around. However, while it is very infuriating at times, I think it's very much so worth playing for its uniqueness. Super Mario 64, Banjo-Kazooie, Super Monkey Ball and Zelda all mixed together in one big shit show melting pot. Unfortunate that the sequel was cancelled and that this company is defunct; this game could definitely use a reboot of some sort.

Let me first preface, I have had this game since the 2000s when it released. I have such nostalgia with this game because of that I considered it one of my favorites, despite never finishing it or even getting halfway through (I only ever got to the Pirate boss before getting stuck). I would push it onto my friends and go "You gotta play this one, its great!" After finally sitting down and realizing I never truly finished this game, I realized that needed to change.

Lord how wrong I was

This game has aged, badly. While the textures and visuals are spot on and great, the overall gameplay and presentation has suffered greatly. Levels, while designed well with some fun and interesting setpieces that compliment the worlds they reside in, have borderline unfair platforming segments designed to either throw you or your ball off. As an example; in Carnival 2 you encounter a set of swinging ships separated by a gap, your options are either to a) dribble the ball or b) slap the ball across. Both of these are valid ways around; however, the ships are asyncronously swinging opposite and at a speed that rivals even the most insane carnival ride. Platforming difficulty is on an exponential curve that kicks in right after the first world, Atlantis. That is the only passable area with nothing of note to say bad on. Prehistoric, another world, can 100% go to hell. Horrible, the worst of 90s platforming.

Platforming aside, the end of area bosses vary on simple to near impossible. Fuck those monkeys at the end of Pirate. I felt nothing as my gloved hand came down to finally right a 20 year wrong by flattening that giant orangutan bastard. The other boss that drove me insane was The Tower of Fear's Frankenstein boss. Tight platforming (both with and without ball) mixed with a puzzle mixed with insta-death attacks for your ball; all drawn out over 10 minutes while you wait for a platform to stop being electrified.

At the end of it all, I didn't really feel any pride or sense of accomplishment finishing this one. There was nothing. All sense of nostalgia I had with this game is now gone, burned away like so many of my deaths by lava from shitty physics and camera angles.

i like how weird and wacky glover is in all honesty. its something people usually dislike about the game, but i personally find thats what gives the game its charm. my biggest gripe with this game would probably be that the controls arent really all that fun to use, and given the fact that the entire basis of the game is navigating through obstacles and the like it isnt really a good mix.
the level design is decent to say the very least, it takes advantage of both the pros and cons of the gimmick… but besides that, i find it to be a really unique concept on its own, i just feel like it should have been executed a bit better. dont get me wrong though, i still love this game nonetheless

My first experience with Glover was initially walking past it at a flea market. It was my primary place to hunt for N64 games as that was the first console I truly began collecting for. At the time, I thought it looked like shovelware so I just ignored it and went to look for something better. Not long after this happened, I got curious and looked up gameplay of the first Atlantis level in the game. Being the 3d platformer connoisseur I am, I regretted not buying it and began looking for the game. A few months pass and I eventually found another copy of the game at the same flea market. I played it, only got past the first world, and never continued from there. I believe I also tried again in 2018 but I couldn't leave the tutorial level for some reason so I stopped once again. Now having finished the game, I did not enjoy it as much as I thought I would.

Glover is definitely a unique concept that sounds genius on paper but it is an idea that doesn't carry over too well once it is implemented in video game form. In each level, you have a bouncy ball that you must have by your side pretty much at all times. The ball can also turn into a bowling ball, a marble, and a gem which are all used for a few clever puzzles. If the ball gets deflated or damaged depending on what form it is in, you lose a life. Because of this, there are plenty of levels where you'll have to be very careful to not lose it or have it fall/get damaged. While there were some fun levels, there were also just as many moments where I found myself getting frustrated with the game due to having to constantly micromanage the ball. Most of the bosses were fine but the Frankenstein's Monster really grinded my gears since it required you to throw the ball up a series of platforms that can be changed by you or the boss at any given time. That & when I played through the broken tutorial again and not being able to leave were the moments where I pretty much came to the conclusion that the game was mid and definitely could have been better.

There were still some aspects of Glover I enjoyed though. The overworld may not be nearly as interesting as Peach's Castle or Spiral Mountain & Grunty's Lair, but I still found some amusement in exploring the initially dark overworld and how it changes later on in the game. The graphics were pretty decent for their time and while most of the worlds mostly had the typical themes you'd find in any other platformer, they managed to still make them look distinct and different enough from the others.

My final opinions on Glover are mixed. It's a unique spin on the 3d platforming genre, but the gimmick that makes it stand out can also be very annoying to deal with on obstacle-heavy levels that can suck the fun out of the game. I'm glad I finally beat Glover but I would also be fine with never revisiting it ever again.

“You take the blue pill... the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill... you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.”
-Morpheus, The Matrix, 1999
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Chapter 1: The History of Glover

Near the turn of the century, in 1998, a game was released. Published by Hasbro, it was entitled Glover. It’s a 3D platformer where you take control of a Glove. Of course, like all great art, it was more than that, but we will discuss this later. For brevity’s sake, let’s say that it’s a by-the-books 3D platformer. At the time, the genre was popular, so Glover naturally achieved a level of success, selling over a million units across all platforms (I), but the sequel, which was almost complete, was cancelled. You see, while the game was a success, Hasbro ordered too many cartridges, which retailers didn’t want to stock. This ended up costing the company a significant amount, and the sequel was the scapegoat for this loss. This is all according to a blog post from Hasbro employee James Steele. I would link it in the references, but the main source has been lost when the website it was posted on went down.

However, this cloud had a silver lining. While this overabundance of cartridges was detrimental to Hasbro’s bottom line, it meant the game was far more accessible in the retro market years later. It had high supply, and, unfortunately, low demand. Therefore, copies of this game were affordable on any platform (II).

I think to some extent, I was destined to play Glover. My favorite genre of videogames is the 3D Platformer, and I had recently obtained a Nintendo 64 around 2021 or so. I also was starting college (Studying for a Mathematics Degree), so I wanted to play games without spending a significant amount of money. Of course, now I know even cheaper ways to obtain retro video games, but I wasn’t wise in such ways even just around 2 years ago. I likely heard about the game, likely from someone on YouTube, and I ended up buying the game for only $15. This was a fairly low price for a N64 game, and I ask that you keep that price in mind for later. Anyway, I ended up playing the game not too long after on August 27th, 2021, a day I will never forget. That day was the day my life changed forever.
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Chapter 2: The Literal Review of Glover

Before I analyze the themes and metacommentary of this game, I’ll do a surface level review. Keep in mind, I played the N64 version, which is superior for several reasons. I may bring up some negative points here, but I’ll explain why they’re actually integral to the game in Chapter 3 of this analysis. The game begins with the Wizard, who has two sentient gloves with which he brews potions in his palace. He seemingly makes a mistake while brewing the potion, which turns him into stone. One Glove falls into a potion, and the other falls out of the palace. The potion turns the former glove (Cross Stitch) evil and the latter glove (Glover) has to stop him, gathering gems that were turned to gems along the way. This is a general summary of the plot.

Now, I think the most transparently good thing about this game is the movement. This game came out in 1998, and still has one of the best and most unique movesets of a 3D platformer. Initially it seems pretty tame, just a jump, double jump, ground pound, and completely useless cartwheel. However, when one takes the ball into account, the moveset is expanded significantly. Glover can dribble the ball to achieve greater height, throw and slap the ball to hit enemies and switches or get the ball to a higher area, run on the ball to float over water, or even ground pound on the ball to do a super high jump. You can also transform the ball into different forms, such as a ball bearing, bowling ball, and its original gem form. It’s an extremely creative moveset in an era when developers struggled to make basic ones.

When it comes to platformers, I think most would agree that good movement is only half of the game. The second half is good level design. This is where many would say Glover falters. In my opinion, the best level design in this game revolves mostly around using Glover’s abilities in clever ways. On my recent playthrough, I got to a level in the first world where these ball guys try and knock away your ball. They’re really good at it. I lost quite a few lives trying to get away from them, as every time they touched the ball it went flying and I lost a life. However, I eventually realized that if I turn the ball into a cannon ball this section becomes doable. I wouldn’t say that this every level has an encounter like this, but pretty much every level does require a mix of normal platforming and puzzle solving, with very little precision platforming thrown in, which I do think is for the best. When you’re holding the ball, the controls are very slippery and loose. The ball will roll down slopes and often bounces a little after landing. Like I said, I think this is fine when the game doesn’t demand precision, but its last few levels do demand quite a bit more, which sucks.

One thing I enjoyed here was collecting the garibs, which are just collectible cards that, while not integral to progressing the game like notes in Banjo-Kazooie or something, do grant points which contribute to extra lives. I like two specific mechanics that contribute to points. One, collecting a lot of garibs in quick succession grants more points, and two, collecting them while the ball is in gem form doubles points. This introduces not only an incentive for speed, but also a risk-reward system that I think is cool.

In terms of the presentation, Glover has a significant amount of style and substance. I’ll mostly talk about the substance in the next chapter, but for now let’s discuss the style and general technical details. For the console, this game looks really good. Everything’s well animated, especially the ball, which seems to be an actual 3D model. However, the draw distance is really short. This is common for the system, but this game in particular has a really short draw distance, which is probably a result of the high poly count. The game also runs at 20fps, which isn’t unheard of at the time, but it kinda stings when combined with the draw distance. Anyway, the music is actually really good. Many tracks have a sort of swing style, although you clearly don’t get the full range of such a song with the midi songs used. I would be remised if I didn’t mention the seagull song (III), which might just be the best song in any videogame ever.

I suppose I should talk about the PS1 version. It’s generally worse. They tweaked a few things with the physics without changing the level design, so the game isn’t as well designed overall. This is a good video (IV)If you want a comprehensive look at all the version differences, sans the recent Steam release.

So overall, on the surface level, Glover is a ambitious but flawed 3D Platformer. Good movement, inconsistent level design, doesn’t perform incredibly well, but good music. I would’ve given it a 6/10, but I couldn’t help but try and look below the surface for this game.

And then, everything changed.
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Chapter 3: Why Glover is a Masterpiece of Sociopolitical Commentary

I understand the perceived absurdity of the title of this chapter. “How can this videogame where you play as a glove be in any way an intelligent sociopolitical commentary? However, one should remember that many of the most beloved works of art have surface level abstraction and absurdity which hides a deeper meaning. Katamari Damacy and its sequel immediately come to mind, but there are many others. Absurdism has always been combined with profundity to create works of art, and Glover is no different.

One thing I forgot to mention earlier is that before the villain was named Cross-Stitch, his name was Glovel. Clearly, this is a nod to the Wizard’s left hand, while Glover is a reference to his right hand. This is a clever nod, but the actual meaning behind these names goes deeper. I’m sure many of you know where this is going: Glover represents the political right, while Glovel represents the political left. I’m sure many of you are thinking now, as I did when I initially made this realization, “Ah, I see. This game’s story is merely a shallow political statement. That’s unfortunate.” However, I couldn’t help but think that there was a deeper layer to this, so I didn’t write Glover off just yet.

The true breakthrough here came around October of last year. I was in Physics Class, studying very hard, and we had recently started talking about Torque. My professor was talking about Right-Hand Rule, and how it’s a subtle yet clear remnant of mass overt discrimination against left-handed people. I had heard about this discrimination before (IV), but I had not devoted significant thought to it since I played Glover, so only then did I have a realization. Glovel himself is a left hand and meant to represent victims of discrimination. Glovel’s transformation into Cross-Stitch isn’t a bad faith statement, it’s a commentary on how bigotry leads to perceived extremism from oppressed groups. Glovel was oppressed, but when he gained power, he started a revolution. The character designs of Glover and Cross-Stitch represent their differences. See how Cross-Stitch has a mouth. He shall be silenced no more, he will proclaim loudly his desire for equality. Glover, however, has no mouth in most artwork. You can view the box art on this very website to see that. He simply follows his orders unthinkingly, never vocalizing his own thoughts. Yes, now everything falls into place. Maybe Glover could try to compromise or at least listen to Cross-Stitch, but he can only see what’s immediately in front of him, not seeing the greater picture when it comes to Cross-Stitch’s actions. Of course! That’s why the draw distance is so low, to represent this character flaw! It was not a flaw of the game, but a flaw of the character! The same can be said of the more precision-platforming focus as the game continues. As the game goes on, Glover tries to stay on the straight and narrow; unflinching not only physically, but morally. Do you see why this game is such a masterpiece? This game has created one of the most sophisticated sociopolitical narratives in history with no dialogue. There’s such a subtle unity between the narrative and gameplay that one could cry. I have cried. I’ve cried many times, thinking of the tragic story of Cross-Stitch and his pursuit of justice.

But still, we’re missing something here. The Wizard. He is the key to this story, the linchpin. After all, Glover and Glovel were merely his tools, in a way. Is this meant to represent a covert organization that is in true control? I would say so. I’m sure anyone who’s had even a minor interest in politics has heard the proclamation that bipartisan politics are influenced by large corporations, or even a secret society. Many say that these people often practice rituals of sorts. This is not unlike the actions of a conventional wizard, so it’s clear that the Wizard is the true villain of Glover. He has no values, and controls both sides of a bipartisan system, only seeking ‘justice’ when one party is no longer in his control.

It's clear that Glover is a tragedy. Two gloves were manipulated by an evil wizard, but one of them gains power and can actually fight for what he believes in. He even recruits his friends, one of which is another misunderstood being, Frankenstein. Glover, believing that he needs to keep order in the world, destroys his friend. It’s an incredible tale that says so much about life and our world. Maybe one could argue that this game isn’t perfect. That’s true, I don’t believe that perfection can be achieved by humanity, but maybe we can achieve something else: Originality. When I consider many of my favorite works of art, Wario Land 4, Hypnospace Outlaw, Watchmen, Baki Hanma, American Psycho, Dead Dead Demon’s Dededede Destruction, and so on, I don’t just love them for their lack of flaws, but because they showed my something new.

I can already see it. Several millions of years from now, when humanity has perished or fled the Earth, somehow a new species will arrive, whether it be from the ground or the skies. In the ruins of the world, Glover will survive because of the excess of cartridges. Somehow, these creatures will find a way to play it. They may not understand the sociopolitical commentary, they wouldn’t know what gloves are, let alone hands. But they will learn of those things. Isn’t that the best thing art can do? Is that not the essence of life, to learn? I learned so much from this game. It taught me the beauty of life. In the end, I gotta love the Glove.

There’s just one issue.
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Chapter 4: How Piko Interactive is Corrupting this Seminal Masterpiece

If you only wanted to hear my thoughts on Glover, you can leave. Certainly, I’ve kept you for long enough already. These next sections are talking about the current state of Glover.

To talk about Glover in the modern day, I must introduce Piko Interactive. Piko Interactive is known for buying the rights to old games and reselling them. I’m not going to say they’re pure evil. They’ve done some cool stuff, such as releasing 40 Winks for the N64, which is an entirely different story, but then they bought Glover. Now, if I haven’t made it clear, I like Glover so I’d hope that the rights holders would treat the property with respect. Unfortunately, Piko made their intentions clear when they started taking down ROMs of Glover.

Now, Piko had announced a re-release of Glover at this point, but it wasn’t actually available to buy. Therefore, aside from roms, you had one option to play Glover: Buy the game for one of its original platforms, preferably Nintendo 64. This decision benefits no one. At this point, Piko was not selling Glover, so any emulation wouldn’t take away from potential sales. Trying to cope with how poorly this masterpiece was being handled, I lied to myself. “Delta, you must calm down. Surely you know, Piko is simply trying to make good on an investment. They will release a great port of Glover to Steam and other storefronts, and the emulation won’t even be necessary.” My lie failed to account for many points, but I wanted to believe Piko cared about Glover, and so I did. However, I couldn’t continue lying to myself when the game was actually released.

If you recall earlier, I stated that I bought my first copy of Glover for only about $15 USD. That’s a good deal for a physical N64 game, but most games from that console generation go for a maximum of $10 on digital storefronts nowadays. The best example is Nintendo’s Virtual Console on the Wii and Wii U, which sold N64 games for only $10, and that was several years ago. Let’s look at other examples of games from that generation on digital stores. We’ll only look at ports/emulation. Quake 1 and 2 are $10, and Quake 3 rides the line at $15. Doom 64 is only $5. Final Fantasy VII is $12. Certainly, it makes sense that a digital rerelease of a game from the past would cost less than a physical version of pretty much any game from that generation.

How about Glover? How much did its re-release cost?

$20.

Yes, the game was released for more money than it cost me to get a physical copy in 2021. I can’t think of many games that were released pre 7th Generation where a re-release costed more than just buying a physical copy. You may say, “But Delta, surely you understand that game prices have gone up since 2021. Don’t rely on outdated data.”

I say, “That is true. However, dear reader, I bought ANOTHER copy of Glover only four months ago. It was only $16.”

You may say, “Delta, you said earlier that you were studying Mathematics, and by extension, at least some level of statistics. Surely you know that only two samples is not reliable data for a population mean. You will need a far greater sample space. I will only accept a population mean value range around or below $20 if the confidence interval is with 95% certainty minimum.”
…
I WENT ON EBAY, SELECTED 50 RANDOM USED COPIES OF GLOVER FOR NINTENDO 64, TOOK THEIR PRICE AND FOUND THAT WITH 95% CONFIDENCE, THE POPULATION MEAN WAS BETWEEN $18.18 AND $21.65. THE MEAN OF THE SAMPLE WAS $19.92, SEVEN CENTS LESS THAN BUYING GLOVER ON STEAM. I WIN, PIKO INTERACTIVE!!! I WIN!!!

(I very well could’ve made a mistake, so if you want to check my work, add me on Discord at ‘cesargarlandouroboros’, and I’ll send you my work. Also, anything I say about Piko is satire.)

But I’m willing to cut Piko a break. They included both the N64 and PSX versions of the game. Yes, the PSX version is far inferior, but you are still technically getting two games. Also, I’m sure at least one of those copies of Glover is a dud. At least, when you buy the Steam port, you know it will work as intended.
.
.
.
…Not really though, because the Steam Port kinda sucks.

How? How did they mess this up? Even Nintendo, who is rightly criticized when it comes to their retro re-releases, usually deliver a fine level of quality when they do re-release a game. For some reason though, this port is a mess! To give Piko credit, they fixed an infamous bug that would delete saves and upped the draw distance (As we’ve gone over the draw distance is important, but I understand why Piko would think it’s an issue and appreciate the effort). However, there’s plenty of issues as well! The game still only runs at 20fps! When it first released, you couldn’t even exit the game without control f-4. When someone complained about this, Piko made fun of the person! There’s tons of other issues that I’m not going to get into, some of which have been fixed, but I think you get the point (If you want a look at some issues at launch, this is a good video) (VI). Piko released a sub-par version of a game for more money than it costs to get physically and removed ROMs of the game meaning that most people wanting to play Glover will buy their middling port and not see it for the masterpiece it truly is. This is quite possibly one of the worst things that could happen to Glover.

Piko Interactive has done a few other things with Glover, such as extremely expensive physical re-releases, but I’m not too concerned about that. Sure, $60 is a lot for a cartridge you can likely get for $18.18 – $21.65, but they do infamously cost a lot to produce, and I guess it is a collector’s item at the end of the day.

However, just like the previous time company interference ruined Glover, there is a silver lining here.
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Chapter 5: Glover 2

Do you remember when I mentioned 40 Winks, the unreleased N64 game Piko gave an official release? Well, Piko has expressed interest in finishing Glover 2 and releasing it. Now, Piko already kind of goofed with a game that’s already finished, so I’m sure they could do way more damage when it comes to finishing a game, but we’ll see. It would still be really cool if they did it. But please, Piko, if you do end up finishing Glover 2, don’t remove the beta version available right now.
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Chapter 6: Afterword

If you read the entire review, thanks. I don’t plan to make many reviews in this style, but I thought it would be interesting to do at least one, and maybe I’ll do something else like this one day.

Ever since I played Glover I had an inexplicable adoration for it. Even on this website, you can likely find many examples of me proclaiming my love. When I started this review, I planned to say “Yeah, my love is ironic, the game is mid.” However, as I wrote this review, I began to realize that I do really love this game. There’s no other game I’d go to such efforts to make a review of. Even replaying for this review, while the game does have some obvious rough patches, I still had a lot of fun with it. As such, I decided it was time to put Glover on the throne of my favorites list. Truly, I have lost all credibility.

Anyway, check out Glover. I’m sure you can find a ROM of the N64 version somewhere.
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References:
(I): https://www.vgchartz.com/game/864/glover/?region=All

(II): https://www.pricecharting.com/game/nintendo-64/glover

(III): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OQzAMDQjGA
Game has three composers (Rob Lord, Paul Weir, Mark Bandola) and I couldn’t find out who composed this specific track :( .

(IV): https://historydaily.org/why-does-left-mean-wrong/8

(V): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EsdyYg8RT0 ‘XP: Glover (N64 Vs. PC Vs. PS1) |
Is It Any Good?’ ExoParadigmGamer. June 28, 2019.

(VI): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYVj3fMuoGY
‘Glover’s PC Port in 2022’. ThumbsUpMaster. May 2, 2022.